


airs of space

by whilst



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilst/pseuds/whilst
Summary: and you most radiant firmamentKate and Alex Murry, et al. choose a summer home in the Connecticut countryside.





	airs of space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finesharp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finesharp/gifts).



"No."

"This isn't Cape Canaveral, Meg. It's cold outside."

"No."

"It is. Put on your hat."

"No."

"Meg, I'm going to count to three." Even as she speaks, Kate Murry née Cambridge thinks back to her own childhood in the English countryside, the drawn out wars of attrition between her obstinate little sister and equally stubborn mother. It's a memory woven through with sweetness, but it doesn't help her now.

"Is Megatarium here giving you trouble?" With a practiced scoop, Alex Murry sweeps his toddler into his arms and up into the air, to her great delight. "Your mommy is a very smart lady," Alex tells their daughter, pressing his nose to hers. "If she thinks you need a hat, I'd say you best do."

"No!" Meg yells, laughing. "No thank you!"

"Will you wear a hat if papa has to wear a hat?" 

The answer is apparently yes--so long as papa is also in charge of transportation. Kate surrenders to the favoured parent with relief and Meg tugs Alex's hat down so firmly that it covers both of his ears, but still deigns to leave her own in place.

"Megatarium?" asks Kate, finally able to pull on her overcoat. "Been reading over my shoulder again?" 

"Just checking your math," he says innocently, getting a swat on the butt for impertinence when he leans in to peck her on the cheek. "All ready to go?"

 

 

Although it's late in the morning, the sky is overcast and the air is cold, and in her opened overcoat, Kate feels that April is very much more winter than spring as they walk out into the weak light. After the dryness of New Mexico and the heat of Florida, the cool moisture of New England holds a particular flavour, an aroma that sends her memories spinning before her like a chorus she once knew by heart. She inhales, long and longing, and beside her, Alex brushes his shoulder against hers.

"She would have come," he says to Kate, hitting the destination of her wandering thoughts before her mind can make it there on its own. "She would have loved to come. You were thinking of your mother, weren't you?"

"I was thinking of home," says Kate. Anxiety and peace. Her mother and the open sky.

Alex hums under his breath. "She would be here if she could."

"I know that," she says too quickly. Alex's reassurance is oddly goading, and Kate smiles to take the sting from her words. But he isn't looking at her; he is loading their few pieces of travel luggage into the back of their 64 Camero while Kate holds up Meg. She doesn't move to help him, but cradles Meg more closely. They're only staying the night; there's no need to take much. With the amount they travel these days, they've both learned how to pack light.

"What is distance, really?" he continues. "Your sister will be on hand, and your brother-in-law will keep us in the loop. It'll be fine, Katydid. Your mother is a tough cookie."

"You sound more worried than I do." But Mrs. Cambridge is 86, and her health hadn't been good when she had stayed with them a year ago, and it wasn't good now.

"I just," Alex sighs and flashes her a lightning smile. "I know how much you want her to be here for the twins."

So saying, Alex reclaims their daughter and opens the passenger door for her, loading sleepy baby Meg into her new car-seat, which would give her a better vantage point for the journey ahead and prevent her from getting into too much trouble. The passenger seat these days was a little bit too crowded for an addition, and Kate maneuvers into her spot feeling very much a large land mammal. Maybe the megatariums of Heinrich de Bary's imagination.

"Twins." Kate settles as Alex climbs into the driver seat beside her, passing her hand over her swelling belly. "I hope your man is right about this place. We won't have too much time to find somewhere else."

"Let's not borrow trouble," says Alex, the hypocrite, and with a click and a rumble, they set off down the road.

 

 

"Are we lost?"

"We really... we really _shouldn't_ be."

"Distance isn't real,' he says. 'Time is a mutable dimension,' he says," Kate mutters under her breath as she unfolds the map they should have been using since the beginning. "They sure seem real now, doctor J. C. Maxwell, because we are both lost and late. No more improbable shortcuts."

"It _is_ a shortcut. If the distance between two points... no, I-- No, I take your point."

 

 

"You said Bill Munchin recommended this place?" There are over 160 miles between Princeton and Goshen, Connecticut, even without winding detours. Kate feels every one of them. Space and time may not be real in Alex's equations, but for a small family with an active two-year-old, there's no escaping them. At least they seem to have outdriven the storm, skies clear and sunny. "Wasn't he the one who suggested our apartment in Roswell?"

"He does a lot of that sort of thing, yes. I told him a little of what we were looking for and, well, his sister lives in town." Alex parks and glances behind them. Meg, awake now and unfussed, regards him with the solemn regard of all small children, so he crosses his eyes and wiggles his eyebrows until she loses interest. "The university isn't too far off," he says, "but most of the area isn't developed. The Agency is eager to get me settled and he's made all of the arrangements, we just have to sign off."

"I liked the little town we passed through," says Kate. "Let's see the house."

The house is postcard perfect.

The woods stretch out for miles in either direction and there's a barn not too far from the main residence. A charming stone fence with a gate and a path that lead down toward what Kate imagines is miles and miles of New England wilderness. In the other direction lies the little town and the rest of human civilization.

It makes Kate ache--just a bit--for home.

Alex takes charge of Meg while Kate sets to inspecting, exploring the space at a slower pace, walking in any direction that catches his daughter's eye, which inevitably leads them back into the yard. No matter how understanding and supportive Kate is, he can't shake the guilt he feels about the hours he'll be away. Even so, he whistles to himself as he waits on his wife's verdict.

 

 

The sun is setting by the time Kate and her passengers step outside to join their tiny family.

"You weren't in there long," she calls out, making her way over. The wide smile on her face makes Alex's breath catch in his throat, so he only nods. "What do you think?"

Meg squirms for freedom and Alex sets her gently on her feet on the grassy floor. "Well, it's a little remote, isn't it?" he offers. "It should have most of what we need, and if I need to travel over the summer, it won't be too bad a drive. But the town isn't very large and won't you feel… isolated?"

"I grew up with space." Kate twirls in place, arms spread wide and eyes shining. "We spent every summer in the fields catching fireflies. The kids will have room to run. I can have a garden again." She catches Alex's hands in hers, spins them in a careful circle around wide-eyed Meg, grasping her skirt with small hands. "But that's not even my favourite part."

"What's your favourite part?" asks Alex, taking his cue, expression both knowing and fond. 

Kate points to a door on the side of the house. The dairy room, he recalls. Cold, stony walled, windowless. "At least you can achieve the cheese-making goals of your dreams," he says, straight-faced.

"The most convenient, environmentally controllable, microscopic cheese makers there can be," she agrees, laughing. "You found me a house with a lab!"

"And one intended for cultivating gremlins." Alex shakes his head, also smiling. "That's you decided, then. And what about you, my little Megaparasec? What do you think?"

"No!" cheers Meg in the way that means yes. Opinion asked for and received, she begins to toddle down the path along the stone wall.

"No," repeats Kate gravely, turning to Alex. "We'll have to think about it." 

Alex takes Kate's hand and tucks it into the crook of his arm. Although they're quickly surrounded by darkness, the chatter of insects and rustling of leaves fills the night air with warmth and a sense of safety. Meg ahead, Alex at Kate's side, and the twins, existing and not-yet-existing, make up the rest. At the end of the path, a rocky outcrop offers a comfortable enough place to rest.

"I know some of them don't exist anymore," Alex says, face turned toward the sky, "and that our current constellations are only an artifact of the speed of light. But the fact that photons can still reach us after millions of years... " He sighs and frowns and in that moment, his starlit profile is so very dear to Kate. "I don't know," he says at last. "It makes me feel... very small. And hopeful."

"I suppose there are some things that don't exist within the coordinates of space or time," says Kate. "Like hope," she says, "or suspicious shortcuts." _Like love._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ao3 user [aziraphic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aziraphic) for all your help--brainstorming, dialogue wrangling, listening to me wail, essential beta-ing, and also literally housing and feeding me--during the production of this fic.


End file.
